[Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: Consensus and the "old ways".

Fri Oct 2 23:56:17 UTC 2009

(at the start of writing this) This is the 80th message in this thread.  I
find this pretty astounding.  I've deleted most of them, but started
wondering why people who's opinions I respect have continued posting.  I'm
not seeing what I am expecting to see here, so I'll throw in a few of my own
on this one.

1) Bullying happens regardless of the decision making system you have, so
long as people willing to bully exist.  The only difference with consensus
system is that the bullies would have to target more people to quash
dissenting opinions. [1]

2) Criticizing people in public is a form of shame.  Public criticism
becomes humiliation and requires the person to defend against it rather than
carefully consider it and allow it to effect their behavior and or
decisions.  [2]

3) Dunno if you noticed, but we're not the only hackerspace in the area.
For all these new/non members who are throwing about how they hate our
"anarchist" [3]ways, I recommend you check out Hacker Dojo.  I hear they do
things differently there. [4]

And please folks, try to get a better understanding of what you're talking
about before you start rambling on about things.  It's really annoying.

Christie

[1] Take the southern black voter movement for an example of some rather
extreme attempts to bully in a democracy.

[2] Every leadership training seminar, workshop and guidebook I've ever
heard of has made a point of emphasizing criticizing in private.  It not
only injures the group member, but undermines the group to criticize in
front of everyone.  Assuming you are not already dealing with a hostile
group, in which case public criticism is the least of your worries.

[3] It's funny that the word "anarchist" is used to describe a system that,
although we don't have many rules, is still a system.  I would characterize
it as an ultimately social organization where the culture we establish is
the rules.  Although the rules are not hard and fast, things are decided by
the cultural traditions and practices.

[4] I am seeing a lot of commentary from people I do not know.  This means
that they're either non-members (at one point I more or less memorized the
list of members) or they've become members since I got busy.  Regardless,
what that means to me is people are throwing around a lot of totally
irrelevant, imagined, hypothetically possible in some other world
issues.[5]  Or as Shannon says, "borrowing trouble".  You're not endearing
yourself to the group.

[5] It's easy to imagine things that could happen with this group.  It's not
intuitively obvious what could and could not happen unless you have a deep
understanding of our group dynamic.  The things they teach you in school
about civics involve a surprising amount of propoganda supporting the status
quo system.  The self-correcting mechanisms which are strong here are not
obvious with a traditional (non-anthropological) approach.
---
Pigs can fly given sufficient thrust.
    - RFC 1925

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Michael Wright <mike at smallip.com> wrote:

> This one's entirely dependent on the relationship between the people
> involved, the severity of the criticism, and the publicness of the act
> believed to warrant it.
>
> In general I try not to say things in public that would embarrass
> someone.  "Hey Shannon, your fly is down" for example, might best be
> said discretely.
>
> On the other hand, if I'm not willing to buy someone a beer or dinner,
> I definitely don't have a relationship such that criticizing them in
> private is appropriate.  In that case whatever it is had better reach
> the bar of importance needed for it to be public.
>
> mike
>
>
> On Oct 2, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Liz Henry wrote:
>
> > It's interesting how those assumptions don't hold true for everyone.
> >
> >
> > I would way rather be criticized in public, otherwise it can
> > potentially
> > turn into abuse and cruelty with no witness. Public criticism at least
> > has a sanity check to it. Potentially.
> >
> >
> > - liz
> >
> >
> > Shannon Lee wrote:
> >> Generally, the rule is just the opposite:  praise in public,
> >> criticize in
> >> private.
> >> -
> >> -S
> >>
> >> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Jason Dusek <jason.dusek at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> 2009/10/02 Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com>:
> >>>> I think this was meant for the list, not me, since this isn't
> >>>> about me and I'm done with this for now.
> >>>>
> >>>> Begin forwarded message:
> >>>>
> >>>> From: Shannon Lee <shannon at scatter.com>
> >>>> Date: October 2, 2009 10:54:12 AM PDT
> >>>> To: Al Billings <albill at openbuddha.com>
> >>>> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Consensus and the "old ways".
> >>>>
> >>>> Dude,
> >>>> Throwing a public tantrum about how your neeeds aren't being
> >>>> met and then refusing to talk about it is childish.  You have
> >>>> my attention, but in 24 hours I'll be done with this.
> >>>  A rule I'd like to see: no private censure.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Jason Dusek
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> >> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> >> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > ------------------------
> > Liz Henry
> > liz at blogher.com
> > liz at bookmaniac.net
> > http://liz-henry.blogspot.com
> >
> > "Without models, it's hard to work; without a context, difficult to
> > evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak." -- Joanna Russ
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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